Haven't we all at one point or another dreamed of some fun yet probably fantastical ideas for improvements on Privateer? I'm sure we've all thought about what it might be like as a multiplayer game. That got me thinking about other ideas, most of them are ones that would require the game to be much more popular and have many more people playing, but they're the idealized vision I have for the future of Priv. Basically I see it as a much bigger sandbox game. Here are some ideas:

Mining materials and a real-time intelligent market that fluctuates on supply, demand, and user participation

Intelligent spawning of materials and enemies and militia based on players' activities, to discourage dispersal

Stations:More variations on stations, more activities possible on stations (especially those fitting of the theme of the station)

more people to talk to, the ability to make conversation and deals with other players (possibly through pre-determined scripts to avoid players' crude immature real-time ramblings)

"real estate" for corporations to house offices (currently only 2 spots, merchants and mercenaries guild, but put a few more spaces and allow other user generated corporations to have offices and their location/popularity could drive up rent to the station

Ability of a player to truly be of any faction, including Confed, Militia, Pirate, Retro.

Kilrathi stations, pirated Kilrathi ship vendors, ability to be a lackey/spy for Kilrah. Not easily accessible or even at all attainable for all, but as a rare possibility it's intriguing.

Computer generated storylines that are created by permutations of certain story variables. With only a small amount of story variables, one could create astronomical amounts of different storylines.

PGG has to be the recreation of original Privateer, not a whole different game. Complexity has to be of the same level with its pros and cons, no goal to simulate real life, no multiplayer and such.

On the other hand, I don't advocate the approach to fanatically clone the original game. The Privateer presented special gameplay spirit and dynamics that made it so popular. Everything that adds to this spirit has to be carefully recreated. But some aspects were obviously half-done and poorly-working, I think PGG just has to overcome these, that's the recipe.

The only thing I would absolutely want for this game, is the ability to buy and fly different ships. I love the 4 that come in the game, but it'd be great to have some other options. I realize this will never happen...but it's still a dream anyway!

There were a couple of attempts to do just what you wanted, but both died before being anywhere near completion. The one closest to being playable was called Privateer Universe (I think), but I don't know if you can get your hands on it anymore. So, I guess it will always just be a dream.